


clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

by NellieOleson



Category: Stargate SG-1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 05:32:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14586021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NellieOleson/pseuds/NellieOleson
Summary: Jack can't keep his hand to himself.





	clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

**Author's Note:**

> This started as commentfic for a screenshot where it looks like Sam and Jack are holding hands. I *might* have posted the first bit here but I can't find it. Anyway, I wrote more of it on Tumblr. I'm just posting it here to keep all my garbage fic together.

They walked down the corridor slowly, nonchalantly, like they held hands all the time and nothing was out of the ordinary. Several people stopped to stare and Sam found it alarming that none of them looked particularly surprised. Confused, maybe, but that was all.

Colonel O'Neill wiggled his fingers, they pulled at her skin. “Ouch.” Sam squeezed his hand to keep it immobile. What part of super-strong adhesive didn’t he understand? “Will you stop that? It’s not going to work.”

“I can’t believe we’re glued together.”

Sure he couldn’t. If she ever managed to get rid of him, she was going to completely ban him from her lab. Because not only could he not keep his hands away from her research, he couldn’t seem to keep them away from her either. “Right,” she said.

He stopped and turned them so her back was against the wall. Sam wanted to kick him in the knee.“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked.

“I told you not to touch it.” Not that he ever listened. No, he had to ‘experiment’ with it and try to figure out the correct amount he would need to glue Daniel’s hand to a coffee cup. And now, here they were.

“I thought you were kidding,” he said.

“All three times?”

He started walking again. Sam wasn’t really sure where they were going. Probably to General Hammond’s office. He was certainly going to need an explanation.

“How long is this going to last?”

“The airman who brought the sample back is still firmly attached to his weapon, sir.” They were near the elevator now. Sam started planning her speech to General Hammond.

“From SG-6?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That was a week ago, Carter.”

“Eight days.” And seventeen hours. They’d tried every solvent they could think of but had only succeeded in giving the airman a hefty case of contact dermatitis. Their current angle of attack was to wait and see if the stuff broke down on its own. So far that plan wasn’t producing any encouraging results either.

“Right.” He held up their hands and pulled her toward the elevator doors. “Your place or mine?”

 

*****

 

It turned out to be neither. 

Hammond’s exact words were: “There is no way in hell I am letting you two off base like this.” 

So here they were, sharing the VIP quarters because it had a private bathroom and a bed big enough for both of them. It had only been three days, and Sam had already reached the limits of her sanity.

“I can’t believe we’re stuck on base,” he griped. He griped everything these days. 

Sam picked up their hands and held them in front of them. “I can’t believe we’re stuck together.”

He pulled their hands back down into the space between them. “Look, I’m sorry. How many times do I have to say it?”

“That depends. How many times do I have to I have to go pee with you standing outside the door?” Barely outside the door at that. The partially open door with his arm sticking through. 

“Well it’s no picnic for me either.” 

“Ask me if I care,” she snapped. Because she didn’t. Not even a little.

He sighed and crossed one arm over his chest. Sam almost felt bad for yelling at him. 

Almost. 

This whole thing was entirely his fault. If he hadn’t touched the thing she told him not to touch, or better yet, if he hadn’t been in her lab in the first place, they wouldn’t be in this mess. 

It wasn’t like he had any reason to be in her lab anyway. Aside from… well, aside from just being there. And telling her dumb jokes. And occasionally making himself useful by bringing coffee. Or donuts. Sometimes he brought donuts and that was nice.

And who was she kidding? 

She liked it. All of it. Even the touching of the things that weren’t supposed to be touched. Because having him around in all of his aggravating glory was better than not having him around. Because she liked him. And, oh my god, what the hell was wrong with her? 

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to pretend he wasn’t there. It didn’t work all that well because she could hear him breathing, could feel the warmth of him sitting next to her. 

Right next to her. 

So close her foot was touching his ankle. And soon, they’d have to go to sleep, and he’d still be there. Right. There. And it would mostly be a big waste of her time because she hadn’t been sleeping all that well. She spent most of the night making sure she didn’t touch him or wrap her arms or legs around him.

Jesus. She groaned and leaned her head against the headboard more dramatically than she’d intended.

“Hey,” he said in his soft voice that made it hard to blame her frustrations on everything but the truth. “I’ll be better. I won’t touch things anymore, I promise.” He was so earnest about it even though it was a promise she was sure he was incapable of keeping. She was convinced his hands picked things up before his brain could stop him. 

“It’s fine.” She gave his parasitic hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry I’m being so unpleasant. This is just harder than I expected it to be.”

“You’re never unpleasant, Carter.”

That was a lie, but she was in the mood to pretend otherwise. “Thanks,” she said.

“And this part is nice, isn’t it?”

He had a point. Sam wasn’t used to having company in the evenings. It was fun having someone to watch tv with. “It would be nicer if I got to pick the channel.” 

“You picked yesterday.”

He pulled her closer when she yawned, tucking their glued hands between them and letting her settle against his chest. His heartbeat was steady and relaxing. “This is better,” she said before she could stop herself. 

Jack pressed his cheek against her hair. “Yeah,” he said. “This is way better.”

*******

The airman from SG-6 came unglued from his weapon on a Tuesday. 

A week and half later Jack said goodbye to Carter’s hand and hello to the itchy red spot where the glue had been. He wasn’t sure it would ever go away. 

It was nice, for awhile, being alone with his thoughts, alone with his shower, alone with his breakfast. He caught himself starting to say something dumb to the empty space at his side more than once, but that was to be expected. He’d had a built in audience for almost three weeks.

Hammond put them both on leave for five days under the pretense of wanting to make sure there were no side-effects of the alien Krazy Glue. Jack thought the real reason was that he just wanted a break from their existence after having to put up with them every day for the better part of a month. Neither of them were exactly at their best for most of that time.

He went to his kitchen, alone, and pulled a beer out of the fridge. It was a lot easier to open with two hands. There were almost enough dishes in the sink to fill the dishwasher. He killed some time loading it and ran it even though the top rack was mostly empty. His second beer kept him company while he made his bed and picked up laundry. 

He ran out of things to do halfway through his third beer, so he picked up his phone and dialed Carter’s number. It didn’t occur to him until the moment she answered that she might not want to talk to him after being forced to be his sidekick for so long. It said a lot about their relationship that she was the first person he thought of calling. A lot of inappropriate things, probably. 

“Why are you calling me?” She didn’t even bother with ‘hello.’ Sometimes Jack missed the pre-caller ID days.

“I was bored,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Sitting on my couch. Alone. Watching the things I want to watch.” Jack let the sound of her voice sink into his chest. Who knew you could miss something like that?

He cleared his throat before asking, “Boring things?”

“Yes.”

“Sounds fun.” It did sound fun. He’d enjoyed watching her endless stream of science documentaries and Ally McBeal reruns. Not that he’d ever tell her that. 

“How about you?”

Jack was staring at the empty spot in his hand. He’d tried watching tv, but couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. “Same,” he lied. 

“Enjoying the solitude?”

“Oh, yeah.” He put his feet up on the coffee table and rubbed his palm on his thigh. It really did itch. “You know me. Always willing to laugh at my own jokes.”

“Well, somebody has to, sir.”

He smiled at the empty room and thought he should call her more often. Like every day kind of often. Often enough to be bad for the distance he normally tried to keep between them. It was hard though, to have that kind of self-discipline after having a taste of a life with no distance. 

“Carter?” She didn’t answer him, somehow picking up by the tone of his voice that things were about to get uncomfortable. He kept talking anyway, because bad ideas were the theme of the evening. “Do you want to come over?”

She was quiet for a long time. Jack thought maybe he’d broken her brain. “Yeah,” she finally said. “I think I do.”


End file.
